Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign hello and welcome to Deep in your yoga practice. I'm Lauren Leduc, the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri. And today we will deepen our yoga practices by talking about inversions. So this is all about facing fear, building strong foundations, and reaping the beautiful rewards that can come with these specific postures that literally flip us upside down. So welcome. I'm so glad you're here. I think that inversions can be both exhilarating and highly intimidating. So whether it's something simple like legs up the wall or you're working toward handstands, today we'll be breaking down the what, why and how of going upside down. I learned how to stand on my head in my cousin's living room when we had been drinking in my early 20s.
[00:00:59] And this is not a method that I recommend for anyone really. What I will say was good about it was that it took the fear out of the equation, you know, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. But I had this strength and alignment to learn and my cousin showed me how to do it and I did a tripod headstand and I couldn't believe I was able to do that. What it did was got me interested and excited. Excited in the possibility of going upside down. I grew up dancing, not in gymnastics, so there weren't a lot of tumbling training and inversion training, not in the way that dancers receive it now. So it wasn't a skill I developed in childhood, except for like cartwheels or something like that. And then later on, as I got more serious in my yoga practice, I became more and more interested in exploring flooring, headstands, forearm balance, handstands, any arm balances, because of the element of fun and breaking past fear because we really can learn a lot moving outside of our comfort zones. Now they are a regular part of my practice. They're a lot of fun. I love to teach them within the confines of a safe, supportive and well taught environment. So that's a little bit about my story around inversions is something I'm still working on all the time that I have breakthroughs in or regressions. It hasn't been a linear journey for me in any way. But my hope is today to introduce you to the concept, normalize some of the feelings that can come up around it and give you a nice starting point for your inversions journey. So something that's obvious is that inversions can feel really scary. It's super normal to be scared of balancing upside down. It's not really a normal movement that we do in everyday life. And I think as we get older especially there can be this fear of. Of hurting oneself, which is totally valid. So a lot of common fears are falling, getting hurt, not being strong enough to support your body weight. And this is a big one. Looking silly or failing, like not being able to do it and doing that in front of other people can be really intimidating. So I want to normalize those fears for you, especially for grown ups who are not used to being upside down. But I will offer some mindful tips for building the courage to be upside down. One is being playfulness. So really tapping into this sense of curiosity and play. I watch my 4 year old daughter do somersaults and flips on our couch. And does it freak me out sometimes? Yes. But she is approaching it from this really playful space that is so much fun. And that's something I want to tap into in my own movement practices, especially in my fees. I don't want things to get dull or serious. I want to continue feeling this sense of playfulness. So that helps a lot with building courage because it takes the pressure off. Also, I would practice progressive loading. So that means building confidence, strength and alignment with preparatory poses for the inversions. So that really when you're going upside down, you're just putting a lot of elements or pieces together that you've already mastered or worked on and that you've built the strength and alignment needed to be able to do so. And I'd also recommend starting close to the ground. And that can be as simple as legs up the wall or downward facing dog. And I'll get into here what makes an inversion an inversion, because you might be surprised to hear those postures as inversions, but they truly are. You don't have to be balancing on your hands to be in an inversion. So what really is an inversion? It's any posture where the heart is above the head. So the heart is above the head, which is what qualifies Downward facing dog as an inversion. So you can think of a really gentle inversion of being legs up the wall. Especially if you elevate your hips like under a block or a bolster so that the heart is slightly above the head. Standing forward fold is an inversion. So standing with your feet hip distance or wider folding your upper body forward lets your head hang low. Your heart's above your head there. Some moderate inversions would be downward facing dog, like I spoke to earlier, dolphin pose, so downward facing dog but on the forearms. And some advanced might be headstand forearm balance and handstand shoulder stand could be considered moderate, but there are a lot of safety considerations there. So I'm going to lump it into advanced as well, just because of the nuance that's needed to practice it safely for most people, if you're not four years old and just going upside down on the couch and made of rubber. So some components that are needed for safe inversions are shoulder and wrist strength and mobility, especially as we're getting into things like handstands. Core engagement, so being able to identify, have awareness of the different muscles of the core. Hamstring openness, because the hamstrings need to be able to open enough to be able to get into the postures a lot of the time. And then proprioception and nervous system regulation. So that's knowing where your body is in space, being able to feel your hips over your shoulders, for instance, and nervous system regulation. So being able to calm oneself in a situation that might bring up a little bit of fear. I definitely suggest slow progression here and proper support. So taking your time to build the foundation to explore inversions in a safe way and providing support like props, walls, having somebody who can give you hands on, assists, etc. Especially as you're going into the more advanced variations of inverting. So there are some really key benefits of going upside down. And I'll lump these into physical, mental, emotional and energetic and philosophical. So physically, inversions can improve circulation and lymphatic flow. They can build strength and mobility in the upper body and in the core, in the shoulders as well.
[00:07:12] And they can stimulate the endocrine system, especially the thyroid and adrenal glands in specific postures. They also can have this really calming and actually nervous system regulating effect, which is beautiful. Mentally and emotionally, they can boost your confidence and focus. It feels really good oftentimes to work toward a goal and to finally get there. It builds our confidence. We can see what our bodies are capable of. It can help shift perspective literally and energetically. Like, okay, I'm feeling a certain way, I'm going to turn upside down and maybe I'm going to feel a different way afterward. I'm literally flipping my perspective with. And it invites play and exploration like I talked about earlier. So it helps you really get out of your head and into your body, which can be so healing and so fun. From an energetic and philosophical standpoint, inversions are meant to help regulate prana or life force energy, particularly in up and a value, which is downward energies. So our lives and the nature of them make us interact with this downward energy a lot we have the force of gravity going against us.
[00:08:19] So we can flip that upside down and find a little bit more balance in our energetic system. And they can also symbolize non attachment and change. So learning to be with uncertainty and not really attaching to the final results. It's all about the path to get there. It's all about the play energetically as well. And from a philosophical standpoint, inversions were promoted as a way to stay youthful and reverse what we might call the ravages of time.
[00:08:52] You could almost think of this downward energy like an hourglass, where the the sand is kind of filling down, down, down. And going upside down from the philosophy is like turning the hourglass upside down. So you're kind of pausing or even reversing this aging process. Now is that true? I don't think so. But I think if you're having a lot of fun, if you are challenging yourself physically, building muscle, finding balance, then in a way you are reversing time, just maybe not in that specific way, because there's not really an hourglass inside. So how do we get started? How do we practice inversions safely? I'll recommend some beginner friendly inversions. The first is legs up the wall, which is Viperita Karani, which means that you lay down on the floor with your bum up against the wall and legs straight up. You might place a block or bolster under your hips. You could also tie like a strap or a booty band around your legs so that you can relax your legs completely. This is such a refreshing one to do at the end of the day, especially if you're sitting a lot or on your feet a lot, it can really provide a lot of relief and calm. I also recommend downward facing dog. So palms on the mat, feet on the mat, body in sort of a triangular position with hips in the air and building strength there. So pressing through the hands, drawing the upper arms toward each other, sliding the shoulder blades down the back, drawing the navel in and up, widening through the cyst bones as you internally rotate the thighs. Those are a few anatomical cues I would give to promote strength and stability in the posture. And then being able to hold that for a few breaths can have some wonderful calming benefits. Supported shoulder stand can be really nice.
[00:10:38] So laying with your legs up, like legs up the wall, maybe just placing a block underneath the hips, that would be one variation. Or stacking blankets underneath the shoulders, giving yourself a lift so that you're not pressing the back of the neck into the mat. I love using Blankets underneath my shoulders. It helps me feel more open and stacked in the posture without compromising my cervical spine. And also dolphin pose, which can veer into intermediate. I think it's downward facing dog but on the forearms, so you'd really focus on pressing the forearms down into the mat. You might even place a block between your hands and squeeze the block. And this is going to help provide some shoulder stability that would be needed later on to balance on your forearms. So those are all good poses to work with starting out. Some other tips I would have are warming up your wrists, your shoulders, your hamstrings. So that might mean wrist circles, shoulder circles, maybe going through like half split and a low lunge. You could use the wall as a partner, so especially as you're into headstand, forearm balance, handstand, you have the wall there to support you. Also try short holds at first, focus on your breath and exit slowly. Make sure that you go into child's pose if you're doing something like headstand, forearm balance or handstand. That way you won't have a huge shift in your blood pressure as you get back up. So you're giving your body a chance to find equilibrium before standing up. And I'd prioritize four form over ego and this is going to require getting good instruction. So I'm giving you some tips over this podcast. But truly finding an inversions workshop or a teacher who is very skilled in inversions and having them teach you can be such a fast track way to get there. They're going to be able to use verbal cues and hands on assists and give you different drills to get into these headstands, forearm balances, handstands in a way that's really safe and empowering and structurally sound. And do know there are some contraindications for inversions. They include glaucoma, certain neck issues, high blood pressure, pregnancy, depending on the pose and the particular yogi. So if you have any question at all as to whether or not you should be doing inversions, talk to a doctor and get the go ahead from them. Your yoga teacher can tell you what these contraindications are, but we are not qualified to treat them in any way or to make the call for you whether or not you should be doing them. So again, check in with your doctor. Before we close out, I do want to talk about inversions as a form of mindfulness and this yogic viewpoint around them. So inversions can be a metaphor for non attachment and surrender known as aparigraha and ishwara. Pranidana in the yoga sutras, we kind of let go of the results at times and trust the process and embrace this unknown, this true unknown of being upside down, of falling, of failing.
[00:13:37] It's about really diving in to the playfulness around that and showing up and practicing. Whether or not we can nail it the first time or the hundredth time, we just keep trying and trying. We also embrace the unknown and surrender the results to the divine. That's what makes it a yogic practice. We say, I'll learn to handstand someday and I'm going to keep trying. Yogic practice is not about perfection. It's about presence and exploration and, dare I even say, fun and play. So whether you're exploring downward dog or working toward handstand, inversions offer a new way to see the world and yourself, and I hope that you find them beneficial and empowering. Know that you never have to be able to do a handstand to be a yogi or a headstand. Really, it's all about mindset and how you can be present and loving with yourself. So I encourage you to maybe try a new inversion this week or revisit an old one with fresh eyes and to take classes at True Love Yoga. We don't have any inversion workshops on the schedule right now, but we typically hold them a few times a year. So I'd love to support you in your inversion journey. So I'd love to know how it feels to do them after listening to this podcast. So please reach out, let me know your feedback, and I just want to tell you, happy practicing. Thank you so much for deepening your yoga practice with me today.
[00:15:04] Until next time, Om Shanti Om. Peace.
